


the room of hidden things

by descartes



Series: Sherlock Holmes AU [1]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Sherlock Holmes AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/descartes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dr. David Archuleta is concerned about the state of his trousers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the room of hidden things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paitac](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=paitac).



> For [](http://paitac.livejournal.com/profile)[**paitac**](http://paitac.livejournal.com/) , who won my services at [](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://help-haiti.livejournal.com/) back in January. Apologies to her for the truly appalling delay, and to all the readers who will be subjected to my poor attempts at mimicking 19th century British prose. Thank you to [](http://jehane-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**jehane_writes**](http://jehane-writes.livejournal.com/) and [](http://rajkumari905.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rajkumari905.livejournal.com/)**rajkumari905** for their comments and corrections.
> 
> You may notice the rip-off, er, similarities to a certain Arthur Conan Doyle short story ;) except containing less awesome Victorian melodrama than the original.
> 
> BTW: [VISUAL](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v51/rentboy/goodgodman.png) [AIDS](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v51/rentboy/yeahiwentthere.png)

"This seems rather excessive," Archuleta ventured to say as he eyed the damp and shadow-wreathed hallway for any unwelcome interruptions. "And illegal."

"Nonsense," Cook replied, and then swore colourfully as the door lock refused to give way to his ministrations. "Excessive would— damn it— entail a ball gown, a— bloody hell— a carriage of opera singers and a battered — ow! trumpet." There was a faint metallic clink and Cook straightened with a flourish only minutely marred by the way he cradled his sore fingers. "This is positively restrained as far as my usual methods are concerned, wouldn't you agree?"

Archuleta was fervently glad Cook had turned away to return the lock picks to his belt; his smile might be misconstrued to be a form of encouragement to continue the lunacy.

Cook asked Archuleta, offhand as he assessed the still-closed door, "Have you brought your revolver?"

Archuleta lifted his eyes up to heaven in long-suffering supplication and allowed his coat to pull back and reveal the barest glimmer of a gleaming metal barrel.

"That's my dear doctor," Cook said, clapping his shoulder briskly. "Now we must make haste; those forged banknotes must be found. I have estimated that Jones will be detained at the Jovial Hen for another twenty minutes," he added and eased open the door.

Jones — William Granby Jones — might have been a highly successful forger who had managed to outwit Scotland Yard for so long that they'd been forced to engage the services of David Cook, the world's first consulting detective, but he evidently rented squalid rooms with mismatched furniture.

Archuleta wrinkled his nose and tried not to peer too closely at the filthy drapes. "Are you certain this is the lair of a notorious and very rich criminal?"

"Absolutely certain." Cook, ever unmindful of everything else while in the pursuit of criminality, was already pressing his ear against the water-stained walls, tapping here and there.

"Please don't lick anything," Archuleta murmured despairingly, proceeding into the bedroom before Cook could respond with nonsense about the scientific method necessitating contact between his tongue and unsavoury objects.

* 

Pressing his wrist to his mouth to stave off an impending yawn, Archuleta blinked hard once, then twice, and did a final examination of the room at large before exiting the bedroom more slowly than he'd entered it. His avid night-time reading of C. Auguste Dupin had not prepared him for the wearisome task of nudging at grey lumps of what he sincerely hoped was unwashed clothing with his cane in hopes of uncovering clues.

Disinclined to allow himself contact with any of the sitting-room furniture, Archuleta leaned on his cane and watched Cook turn on his heel in slow contemplation, eyes darting to and fro as if he could intimidate the room into simply giving up its secrets. His right hand idly slapped the riding crop he favoured as a weapon of choice against his thigh. Archuleta felt unusually lightheaded; he was beginning to suspect that there was inadequate ventilation in this building to match the mouldy furnishings.

"What seems to be the matter, Cook?" he asked, growing obscurely impatient with what he felt was Cook's indolent circumnavigation. Cook had been the one who'd very earnestly told Archuleta about the value of speed in an investigation, once upon a time in their own drawing-room, Cook's hands haphazardly plucking at his guitar's strings while Archuleta drooped over a medical monograph.

Cook's brow furrowed. "The answer is here in this room, the trail of evidence is indisputable," he muttered, and Archuleta had the queer feeling that he would have talked, Archuleta's prompting regardless, "I can discern the solution from the corner of my eyes, but when I turn my head, it disappears from my view!"

Archuleta knew better now than to interrupt or to placate Cook in these moments, so he merely watched and remained silent.

Then there was a loud retort of air in the tiny room being cleaved at high speed, and the bitterly familiar stench of gunpowder, and Cook was no longer in his line of sight; Archuleta's swiftly-tilting world had narrowed down to a sudden searing pain in his thigh.

That too was bitterly familiar.

The floorboards, rotting as they might have been, resolutely did not yield to Archuleta's weight as he crumpled to the ground. Dimly, Archuleta watched as Cook rushed towards the figure in the doorway with his riding crop raised, striking down the arm that had begun to swing a pistol in his direction. In what seemed like no time at all to Archuleta's blurring senses, Cook had the man — _Jones the forger_ , his mind supplied, because he'd been shot in the leg, not in the head — out cold and secured to the sturdiest chair by means of the rope Archuleta never quite figured out how Cook kept in his pockets.

Within another breath, Cook was on his knees next to Archuleta. "Are you all right? Say to me that you are all right!"

"It is but a scratch," Archuleta gasped out, shaken more by Cook's gaze than the blood he could faintly feel seeping through his trousers.

Unheeding, Cook pulled out a knife from his boot — _oh dear God in heaven Archuleta still valued his leg, it had been up to this point his_ good _leg_ — and sliced up the side of Archuleta's trousers with a swift stroke. Some of the uncontrolled panic receded from his features when he glimpsed the wound.

"You shall be fine," Cook told him, grotesquely cheery as he tore up ragged strips of what had been Archuleta's third-best tweed.

"I could have told you that," Archuleta replied, watching Cook's hands tremble as they bound the ugly gash. "Now both of my legs will have the dubious pleasure of detecting the presence of cold weather."

Cook laughed then, cobblestone-rough and not at all bearing the lightness of mirth. He said, "My dear doctor, is there no situation where you cannot find the silver lining in the darkest of clouds?" though the mocking edge was dulled by the relief and not inconsiderable affection with which he brushed the hair off Archuleta's sweating brow.

"At the very least I was not required to make use of my gun." Archuleta had meant to say it in jest, to ease the deepening lines on Cook's face as he made quick work of the makeshift bandage, but pain had a terrible side-effect of robbing levity from any situation.

"I always wish that you never have need of it," was the reply, though perhaps it was not meant for Archuleta's ears.

However, Archuleta could not pretend that had not heard it, and he patted the knee nearest his, waiting until Cook met his gaze before he whispered in return, "I would not compromise your safety," and that was that.

*

The forged banknotes, as well as the bulk of the equipment Jones used to create them, turned out to have been ingeniously concealed in the chaise longue. Cook had deduced this a split-second before Jones had barged in, telling Archuleta as he sawed away at the seams that, "It should have struck me at the very first, that this particular piece of furniture was suspiciously lumpy, even given the general state of Jones's taste in décor, and that it was also remarkably well-maintained in comparison with the rest of this place."

They shared a smile when the first bundle tumbled from the torn cushions right into Cook's lap.

Over Archuleta's vociferous objections to his coat too being made victim to the wretched room, he was propped up against the wall and made to stay still and keep watch on the still-unconscious Jones — revolver clutched firmly in his hands — as Cook retrieved Scotland Yard.

Inspector Cowell and his lackeys swooped into Jones's lair soon enough, Cook trailing them, his face a picture of thinly-disguised satisfaction over their discombobulation at having let a private citizen do their work for them.

Still, no one would ever say this out loud, especially neither Cook nor Cowell, both being too obstinate to even imply that they needed each other, so the discussion about Jones was almost civil. Cowell acknowledged Archuleta's prone form with the lifting of both eyebrows — a frantic gasp from anyone else; Archuleta was oddly warmed by the show — and a gruff inquiry as to whether additional medical assistance would be of use. He had half-turned to snap at a scurrying constable when he was interrupted both by Archuleta's startled, "Oh, no, it's all right," and Cook's, "No, I shall take him home."

"You will?" asked Archuleta and the inspector simultaneously, though it was to Archuleta that Cook directed the near-affronted, "Of course I shall!"

"It is not that I doubt you," Archuleta hastened to say, "But, I mean, the investigation—"

This did not have the intended effect of pacifying Cook. "Why, you are injured. The investigation is surely of secondary importance."

Archuleta felt it unwise to point out that for the past three weeks, the Jones case had occupied every waking second of Cook's life, and even some of his sleeping ones. It had taken all of Archuleta's coaxing to lure Cook into taking a night or two off for some forgery-unrelated activity at a restaurant or the theatre.

Before he could fumble his way through an explanation, or an apology perhaps, Cowell intervened with an impatient, "Dr. Archuleta, would you be so kind as to remove Mr. Cook from these premises? Given what I know of his habits, I'd warrant he might require a good night's rest and long-awaited communion with that ghastly instrument of his."

Archuleta distracted Cook from retorting about ungrateful and incompetent policemen by the simple expedience of attempting to get to his feet; Cook immediately started berating him about foolish and impetuous doctors, all the while gently lifting Archuleta by the waist and making sure he kept still until the errant cane could be retrieved. When Archuleta had finished testing his weight on his cane, Cook refused to let go of Archuleta's other arm and even glared at a police officer who tried to offer assistance to Archuleta.

*

After Archuleta had been settled into the hackney, Cowell shook his hand through the open window, bidding him a swift recovery, then shook Cook's hand with a murmured, "Much obliged."

"All in a day's work," said Cook; all three of them knew that there would be a bottle of London's best apple cider delivered to 221 B Baker Street by the morrow, lacking a card yet brimming with compliments from Scotland Yard.

Cook climbed in next to Archuleta, rapped the opposite wall for the driver's attention and placed a steadying hand over Archuleta's knee as the carriage lurched into motion.

"Are you sure you're feeling quite well?" he asked, voice low underneath the rattling clatter of wheels and hooves. "I am certain Dr. Minor would consent to looking you over tonight."

"As I said, it's just a scratch. We do not need to alarm Dr. Minor, and he would tell you himself that I have everything to patch myself up in my bag at home."

"But what if—"

"Cook," sighed Archuleta, and in a fit of boldness brought on both by fatigue and exasperated affection, slid his fingers beneath the loosened cuff of Cook's sleeve and held on tightly. He stared down at their enjoined hands, hidden by the dimness of the carriage and the dark, stained fabric. "It was not your fault."

"I was careless."

"So was I."

This uncharacteristically sharp response forced a reluctant laugh from Cook. "I can't win this argument against you, can I?" and turned his wrist so his palm held Archuleta's loosely.

Archuleta shook his head, then winced when a wheel bounced against a rough patch of road. He felt Cook stiffen and said quickly, "If you ask me if I'm all right I will leap out of the window."

Cook laughed again. "I would not dare; I simply wondered if today's adventure would make for a decent little tale for your readers in The Strand. Suspense, excitement, the triumph of good over villainy: I daresay it shall."

This was the first time in recent memory that Cook had made reference to the stories Archuleta had so diligently been writing without any sardonic witticisms, yet Archuleta could not fathom what had prompted this change of heart.

Unaware of Archuleta's gratified surprise, Cook continued, "Loathe as I am to admit it, Cowell is correct in his estimation of my exhaustion. Would you— I mean, if it would be of no great bother to you, would you excuse me for a little while?" and Archuleta saw him lean his head back and close his eyes.

Archuleta nodded his consent, though of course Cook could not see it; Cook's hand held tight, and then slackened its grip on his own.

Hours passed, or it might have been minutes: against all probability it could have been blood loss taking its toll. Cook shifted restlessly, and he curled inwards in his sleep, as if seeking the heat emanating from the close press of their bodies. Then, to Archuleta's complete surprise, came the addition of the weight of Cook's arm behind his neck: an echo of their earlier position. Archuleta fought his instinctive recoil — Cook had asked so nicely, and it was true that Cook had been less than adequate in taking care of himself since the case had opened. It would be remiss of Archuleta in his capacity as Cook's physician to disallow him his rest.

Cook's regular breathing was warm on his cheek, a pleasant distraction from his aching extremities, and the noise from London beyond the walls of their hackney drowned the quickening beat of Archuleta's heart; all things considered, it had been a good day.


End file.
